Student protests: Met under fire for charging at demonstrators (UK)

[marmar]

from the Guardian UK:



Video: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/26/student-protests-police-under-fire


Scotland Yard is under mounting pressure after video footage emerged of officers on horseback charging into a crowd of protesters during a demonstration against rises in university tuition fees, 24 hours after they denied that horses charged the crowd.

Footage posted on YouTube showed mounted police riding at speed into a crowd of around 1,000 protesters who had gathered south of Trafalgar Square on Wednesday night.

Asked about whether there were horse charges at a meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority the following day, the Met commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, replied: "Certainly that's not … I was at the debrief last night, there was no reference to that whatsoever and I have no reference to it."

Pressed by MPA member Joanne McCartney to clarify the situation, he replied: "Of course I will, but in doing that I don't want to then create a headline saying I'm acknowledging something's happened."

Later that day a Met spokesperson said: "Police horses were involved in the operation, but that didn't involve charging the crowd." The spokesperson said horses may have been used "to help control the crowd for everyone's benefit", but added "police officers charging the crowd – we would say: no, they did not charge the crowd." ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/26/student-protests-police-under-fire

[Canuckistanian]

1. I saw the video - the mounted police clearly charged into the crowd

People scattered, the police on foot manhandled people who didn't move fast enough. It was mass pandemonium.

All caused by the police.

This is huge in the U.K. right now. I'd be surprised if there weren't some Met resignations over this. They clearly lied.

[tblue37]

4. Remember the riots at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago?

The later investigation came to the conclusion that it was a police riot. It sounds like that is exactly what happened in this case: the police deliberately created a situation where they felt they could get away with turning a peaceful protest violent and then escalating the violence.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

5. Watched it live on TV, then they tried to change the facts as

to what happened, they went into hotel rooms and beat people.

[Canuckistanian]

6. Oh, yes. The concept of "agent provacateur" has been around a LONG time.

Sometimes they're planted, sometimes they're ordinary citizens PUSHED into reacting.

The main idea is to DISCREDIT the protester's points by painting them as "extremists".

And most of the time, it works.

[tblue37]

9. But the agent provacateur is *not* what we are referring

to here. The agent provacateur is disguised as a member of the protest group, one who deliberately commits mayhem and violence so it will get blamed on the protesters, or who tries to persuade the protesters to get violent.

But that is not what was going on here. Instead, the police were deliberately trapping the protesters and even bystanders who were not part of the protest--"kettling" them, as one protester referred to it (apparently that is the actual term for it in UK)--and not allowing them to leave the "pen." Then they would, on cue, either begin clubbing them with nightsticks or getting up into their faces and yelling, or else pepper spraying them or otherwise manhandling them and brutalizing them. Also, as these reports show, they would charge them with their horsses, to create panic, so they could then attack the victims when they panicked and tried to get away from the "pen."

That is not the same as the agent provacateur, though I have no doubt that they had the protest group salted with those, too.

Like the Chicago riot in 1968, this time the only ones rioting were the police. The protesters were being peaceful, but the police were violently attacking them for no real reason at all.

[Canuckistanian]

12. Yeah, I realized that after I posted

It's not exactly the same.

[Kievan Rus]

8. The same thing happened at Pitt during the Pittsburgh G-20

[Scruffy1]

13. I remember all too well

My first job as a "reporter". Too dumb to get out of the way I guess. Still am.

[bemildred]

2. Always take cameras, and use them. nt

[Starry Messenger]

3. recommend.

[Greyhound]

7. K&R. "The whole world is watching!" n/t

[leftstreet]

10. K&R

[maryf]

11. K&R

The truth always outs...